Gas mask bra takes Ig Nobel prize for Public Health

A flurry of scientists, leaders and institutions have become the graceful (or in some cases, unwitting) recipients of this year's Ig Nobel Prizes, awarded last night in Harvard University's Sanders Theatre. Among them was an ingeniously designed bra that could be converted in an emergency into a pair of gas masks.

The irreverent ceremony was first held in 1991 to honour scientific work "that cannot, or should not, be reproduced", but has since evolved to incorporate a higher purpose: acknowledging work that must "first make people laugh, and then make them think."

Despite the sometimes serious undertones, the night maintains its cheeky sense of humour. Each winner has just 60 seconds in which to deliver his or her acceptance speech, before being driven off stage by an eight-year-old timekeeper crying, "Please stop. I'm bored!"

British scientists Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson, from Newcastle University's school of agriculture, shared the prize for veterinary medicine, acknowledging their discovery that named cows produce more milk than those that remain nameless. Douglas was thrilled to receive the gong, and dedicated the award to Purslane, Wendy and Tina – "the nicest cows I have ever known".

Britons have regularly featured in the awards: in 1995 a team of researchers won the physics prize for their work investigating why cereal goes soggy. Controversy about whether the research was privately or publicly funded prompted Britain's chief scientist at the time, professor Sir Robert May, to ask the organisers not to award any more Igs to UK researchers, who were emerging as embarrassingly frequent winners of the prizes.

Peace Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining – by experiment – whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or an empty one.

Economics The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks – Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland – for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa – and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.

Physics Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA, for analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over.

Literature Ireland's police force, for writing and presenting more than 50 traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country – Prawo Jazdy – whose name in Polish means "driving licence".

Public Health Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a bra that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of gas masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.

Mathematics Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank, for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers - from very small to very big - by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000).

Biology Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan, for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90 per cent in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas.

Veterinary Medicine Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.